Real-Time World

Thisis a re-issue of Christopher Priest’s first short story collection, Real-Time World. Originally a hardback from NEL in 1974, the book has been more or less unavailable ever since.

“A volume of ten short stories with a self-effacing author’s introduction and hardly a flat spot anywhere: rare indeed. The first, “The Head and the Hand”, is a fabulously disgusting Dahlesque story about a man who has made a fortune by amputating bits of himself in front of dinner-jacketed audiences and television cameras. Christopher Priest has the knack of hitting on a single character, an inspired outsider, with a quirk or hang-up which makes him constantly interesting.” – Times Literary Supplement

As well as “The Head and the Hand”, the book includes the much-anthologized stories “Fire Storm”, “Real-Time World” and Priest’s first-published story “The Run”.